Lifeboat Foundation

Astronomers uncovered that a well-known X-ray binary, whose exact nature has been a mystery to scientists until now, is actually a hidden ultraluminous X-ray source. X-ray binaries are intriguing systems consisting of two celestial bodies: a normal star and a compact, dead object such as a black hole or a neutron star that sucks material from its stellar companion. A few hundred such sources have been identified thus far in our Galaxy. When it comes to the most powerful phenomena in the Universe, the release of gravitational energy in X-ray binary systems stands out as a highly efficient process.

Among the first X-ray binary systems discovered in the cosmos is the system Cygnus X-3. Since the early 1970s, this binary system was noted for its ability to briefly emerge as one of the most intense radio sources, yet in a few days it dims or vanishes altogether.

This peculiar characteristic spurred early efforts, coordinated by telephone calls, to unite astronomical observations across the globe.

We get healthy dietary fiber from consuming fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. But why is fiber so good for us? A team of researchers has discovered that dietary fiber plays a crucial role in determining the balance between the production of healthy and harmful substances by influencing the behavior of bacteria in the colon.

Dietary fiber benefits our health, and scientists from DTU National Food Institute and the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports at the University of Copenhagen have now uncovered an essential part of why this is the case. Different types of bacteria inside our colon compete to utilize an essential amino acid called tryptophan. This competition may lead to either good or bad outcomes for our health.

The research, published in the journal Nature Microbiology, reveals that when we eat a lot of dietary fiber, gut bacteria help turn tryptophan into healthy substances. But if we don’t eat enough fiber, tryptophan can be converted into harmful compounds by our gut bacteria.

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A small team of public health specialists from the University of Glasgow and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health reports a possible link between some cases of autism and prenatal diet.

In their study, published in JAMA Network Open, the group analyzed information in two large databases of medical information on thousands of mothers and daughters in Norway and England.

Prior research has suggested that there appears to be diet, genetic and environmental factors involved in the development of autism in children while they are still in the womb, though the exact cause is still unknown. For this new study, the research team looked more closely at the role of diet in its development.

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WASHINGTON — Maxar Intelligence, a provider of geospatial intelligence and Earth observation services, on July 18 released the first images from its WorldView Legion satellites. The inaugural pair of these advanced Earth observation satellites were launched on May 2 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

WorldView Legion is Maxar’s latest constellation of high-resolution Earth imaging satellites, designed to increase the company’s imaging capacity and revisit rates. These satellites are capable of collecting 30 cm-class imagery, providing detailed views of the Earth’s surface for a wide range of applications, from defense and intelligence to urban planning and disaster response.

Maxar said the commissioning and calibration process for the first two WorldView Legion satellites is still under way.

BUSAN, South Korea — The European Space Agency will allow a proposed mission to the asteroid Apophis to proceed to a next stage of development to keep it on schedule even though it is not yet fully funded.

ESA announced July 16 that its space safety program, which includes planetary defense, has given the Ramses mission permission to begin preparatory work for the mission, which is designed to visit Apophis before that asteroid makes a very close flyby of Earth in April 2029.

Ramses, or Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety, would use the same spacecraft bus as ESA’s Hera mission, scheduled to launch this October to visit the asteroid Didymos, whose moon Dimorphos was the target of NASA’s DART mission to deflect its orbit. Ramses will carry two cubesats for additional studies of the asteroid.

Researchers at TMOS have developed a metasurface-enabled solenoid beam that can pull particles towards it, potentially revolutionizing non-invasive medical procedures like biopsies. This technology, which uses a thin layer of nanopatterned silicon, offers a lightweight, portable alternative to the bulky equipment previously required for such beams. Credit: University of Melbourne.

Researchers at TMOS, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, have made a significant initial advancement in creating tractor beams enabled by metasurfaces. These beams of light, capable of drawing particles towards them, are inspired by the fictional tractor beams seen in science fiction.

In research published in ACS Photonics, the University of Melbourne team describes their solenoid beam that is generated using a silicon metasurface. Previous solenoid beams have been created by bulky special light modulators (SLMs), however, the size and weight of these systems prevent the beams from being used in handheld devices. The metasurface is a layer of nanopatterned silicon only about 1/2000 of a millimeter thick. The team hopes that one day it could be used to take biopsies in a non-invasive manner, unlike current methods such as forceps that cause trauma to the surrounding tissues.

A newly discovered neutron star, found by an international team using the ASKAP radio telescope, spins every 54 minutes, making it the slowest of its kind.

This discovery could alter scientific theories about neutron stars and white dwarfs, emphasizing the need for more research to understand their emission properties and evolutionary paths.

Astronomers have detected what they believe to be a neutron star spinning at an unprecedentedly slow rate — slower than any of the more than 3,000 radio-emitting neutron stars measured to date.